


your contribution

by fraud



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Miscommunication
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-15
Updated: 2013-09-15
Packaged: 2017-12-26 16:37:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/968195
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fraud/pseuds/fraud
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They do a lot of thinking and not a lot of talking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	your contribution

**Author's Note:**

> written for ae-angst back in 2011. the prompt was silence.

[ A u g u s t ]  
.  
.  
.  
  
“Do you wanna talk about it?”  
  
Trust Arthur to make it sound like a demand. A question that has a right answer and a wrong answer, and the trick here is that the two are entirely interchangeable. Not in meaning, no, never anything so complex.  
  
The simple truth will suffice between them.  
  
If Eames accepts the olive branch, he’ll ruin the illusion that the wood isn’t actually rotted through.  
  
If he rejects the offer, he reinforces the stake that’s driven itself between them.  
  
How that is even possible when Eames knows the feel of Arthur’s throat beneath his hands, strong enough to hold his head above shoulders that gladly accept the weight of a guilt not his own but pliant as rotted fruit under the span of Eames’ thumb and forefinger, he will never know.  
  
There can only really be one answer for Eames, and no matter which way he reasons it, in Arthur’s books, his answer will always be the wrong one.  
  
Sincerity is a novelty in a field where you’re paid in dirty money to steal people’s thoughts right from their heads, and Arthur doesn’t believe in it at all. He has a secure grip on what is real and a healthy foundation of paranoia, which is surprising considering the company he keeps.  
  
Even if Arthur doesn’t go running for the toilets after watching his grey matter spray-paint the concrete in splotchy mounds of brain and bullet, he still wakes up white knuckled and shaking. He’s still just as affected by it as Cobb is.  
  
As they all are, really.  
  
He just knows not to voice it; all but looks down on those who do.  
  
Arthur doesn’t believe in words. Of that much, Eames is certain.  
  
It seems almost as though words were never a part of Arthur’s life, and he’s clumsy with them- a trait he hates to see in others but is loathe to see in himself. The sentiment in his question is lost somewhere between what the words could mean ( _Are you alright? Are we alright? Can we be alright?_ ) and how they’re received.  
  
Eames can only dream of a world where Arthur would mean those words as more than a precaution; less a contingency plan for if Eames loses his mind and more concern that he doesn't. Not just covering his bases in the most detached of ways. So Eames shakes his head and swallows the words down with so much excess saliva. Regardless of his choice, he can only be wrong.  
  
There is only one safe answer.  
  
“Do I ever want to _talk_ about it?”  
  
  
  
  
  
  
[ M a r c h ]  
.  
.  
.  
  
“Do you want to talk about it?”  
  
This is always the same with Eames. Endless questions that have no real answers because he’s a master with words and Arthur can barely find the right ones when he needs them.  
  
Arthur sighs down at his notebook and wonders what it must be like to live in the pages of his moleskin, a purposeful stain upon pressed fibers.  
  
If he accepts the offer, he becomes just another face at the forger’s disposal.  
  
If Arthur rejects the dove, they will continue to float on this sea of uncertainty until the day comes when they turn on each other.  
  
It’s terrifying that he can imagine the taste of Eames on his tongue. Sharp and acrid like the smoke that clings to his fingertips and wet like the blood he spills in so many dreams.  
  
Words aren’t the same for Eames- they’re tools. As physical as the keys Arthur taps away at or the chemicals he can smell on the singed air.  
  
He could blame it on the heat. Eames always likes to work these fucking jobs that feel like walking into hell; the sun impossibly hot and bending the air against the horizon in waves that would trick a man less prepared than Arthur. Perhaps it is the heat that makes the words dance, mirage-like in the part of his mind that differentiates between  _what things are_  and  _what things could be._  
  
To talk about it would take ages, and there are words he could use to describe it. This. The way things are. But the absurd thing is, he knows it would sound more significant coming from anyone’s mouth but his own.  
  
Arthur doesn’t want to know what Eames would say if he  _did_. If he told him yes, he does want to talk. He wants to talk until he’s hoarse and empty from it; until he’s used all of the words he’s ever known to describe this gnawing uncertainty inside of him and then just  _hope_  that he doesn’t have to talk anymore. Told him that yes,  _of course_  he still fucking dreams, but it’s never anything he wants to remember.  
  
Part of it is, he realizes, that he doesn’t know what he’d say if the time ever came to return the favor.  
  
His mouth is too dry.  
  
Arthur can’t imagine a world where Eames knows the difference between truth and what he wants. So he ignores the look he can feel on his shoulder, all down his arm, and goes back to his notes.  
  
There is only one safe answer.  
  
“Do I _ever_ wanna talk about it?”


End file.
